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Notes  in  History 


47 


laws  and  in  the  imposition  of  duties  the  authority  of  Congress 
was  not  involved,  but  these  ordinarily  sovereign  prerogatives 
were  exercised  solely  with  regard  to  the  interests  of  Maryland. 
In  Maryland,  therefore,  before  the  ratification  of  the  Articles 
of  Confederation  the  sovereignty  which  the  British  Crown  had 
possessed  reverted  to  the  state  government.  In  this  particular 
state,  Congress  assumed  such  power  only  with  the  express 
approval  of  the  legislative  authority.  This  conclusion  agrees 
with  the  doctrine  advanced  by  the  advocates  of  state  sovereignty. 


SECESSION  IN  NORTH  CAROLINA. 
By  H.  M.  Wagstaff. 

No  adequate  account  of  the  secession  movement  in  North 
Carolina  has  hitherto  appeared.  The  information  for  this  study 
is  found,  for  the  most  part,  in  the  newspapers  of  the  time,  in  the 
manuscript  letter-books  of  the  governors,  the  manuscript  files  of 
the  State  Council,  the  letters  of  Vance  and  others,  published 
addresses  of  T.  L.  Clingman,  the  printed  journals  of  the  assembly, 
and  convention  journals.  Personal  evidence  of  men  now  living 
who  were  prominent  during  the  period  has  also  greatly  aided  the 
inquiry.  New  light  has  been  thrown  upon  the  period  and  the 
results  may  be  summarized  as  follows  : 

With  the  overthrow  of  the  national  whig  party  just  after  the 
Compromise  Measures  of  1850,  were  enacted  into  law,  North 
Carolina  passed  from  a  whig  regime  of  fifteen  years'  duration 
and  became  democratic  in  both  her  national  and  state  politics. 
Slavery  agitation  incident  to  the  compromise  was  influential  in 
her  return  to  particularism,  but  the  immediate  cause  of  demo- 
cratic ascendency  was  the  blow  dealt  to  whig  solidarity  by  a 
suffrage  reform  movement  of  the  democrats  begun  in  1848. 
Eastern  whigs  were  favorable  to  the  measure  while  western  whigs 
desired  a  more  sweeping  reform  involving  the  change  from  the 
federal  to  a  white  basis  of  representation  in  the  General  Assembly. 
The  whigs  thus  divided,  the  democrats  elected  David  Settle 


^ 


48  Johns  Hojikins  University   Circular  [528 

Reid  as  governor  in  1858.  Reid  was  a  strict  constructionist  of 
the  radical  school.  For  several  years,  however,  the  assembly, 
though  democratic,  refused  to  sanction  a  truculent  attitude  toward 
congressional  legislation  on  slavery. 

With  the  passage  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  in  1854,  disin- 
tegration of  the  state  whig  party  was  complete.  The  ' '  know- 
nothing  ' '  party  served  as  a  temporary  shelter  for  the  whigs 
until  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act  had  completed  the  sectionaliza- 
tion  of  the  democrats. 

Actuated  by  a  fear  of  the  danger  of  particularism  to  the  Union, 
the  people  of  North  Carolina  began  a  return  in  1858  to  the 
conservative  principles  which  had  been  abandoned  during  the 
excitement  of  the  Kansas  struggle.  This  movement  rapidly 
developed  strength  and  continued  its  course  despite  the  agitation 
renewed  afresh  by  John  Brown's  raid  and  the  stubborn  speaker- 
ship contest  in  congress.  The  electoral  vote  of  the  state  went  to 
Breckenridge,  democrat,  rather  than  to  Bell,  unionist,  because 
the  people  believed  Bell  had  no  chance  of  election  and  that 
Breckenridge' s  success  would  furnish  the  only  guarantee  of  the 
cotton  states  remaining  in  the  Union. 

Breckenridge' s  defeat  and  the  subsequent  secession  of  the 
cotton  states  divided  the  people  into  union  and  disunion  parties. 
Two  theories  of  the  federal  constitution  were  held  in  the  state. 
(1)  The  national  theory  had  the  adherence  of  a  large  portion 
of  the  old  whigs  and  their  best  known  leaders.  (2)  The  com- 
pact theory  was  held  by  the  whole  body  of  democrats  and  a  few 
whigs.  Among  the  democrats,  however,  were  two  factions.  One 
faction  demanded  immediate  secession  ;  the  other  opposed  seces- 
sion until  the  rights  of  the  South  should  be  more  specifically 
attacked.  This  conservative  faction  acted  with  the  national 
theory  whigs  and  made  up  a  majority  which  held  the  state 
quiescent  and  awaiting  further  development  in  the  national 
situation. 

Despite  the  formation  of  the  confederate  government  by  the 
lower  southern  states,  the  people  of  North  Carolina  voted  down 
a  convention  to  consider  secession  and  the  unionists  remained 
dominant  until  the  attack  on  Fort  Sumter.     "With  Lincoln's  call 


529]  Notes  in  History  49 

for  troops  the  conservative  democrats  joined  the  original  secession 
faction  and  made  a  majority  for  secession.  The  national  theory 
men  were  now  also  prepared  to  withdraw  from  the  Union,  but 
preferred  to  do  so  under  the  form  of  revolution.  A  second 
convention  was  called  without  its  reference  to  the  people.  This 
convention  met  May  20,  and  was  found  to  contain  secessionists 
and  revolutionists  respectively  in  the  ratio  of  two  to  one.  After 
the  test  vote  the  ordinance  of  secession  was  passed  unanimously. 
Secession  had  become  an  accomplished  fact,  but  only  after  every 
effort  to  remain  with  honor  in  the  Union  had  failed. 


PARTIES  IN  THE  VIRGINIA  CONVENTION  IN  1861. 
By  D.  S.  Fkeeman. 

This  investigation  is  based  upon  the  printed  journals  ;  contem- 
porary periodicals  and  pamphlets  ;  the  manuscript  Archives  of 
Virginia  ;  personal  interviews  with  surviving  members  of  the 
convention  ;  and  manuscript  memoirs  from  many  sections  of  the 
state.  The  presence  of  three  different  parties  in  the  state  when 
the  members  of  the  convention  were  elected  led  to  the  formation 
of  three  parties  in  that  body,  which  did  not  follow  the  regular 
national  party  lines.  The  secessionists  as  their  name  implies 
advocated  separation  from  the  union  with  various  provisos  ;  the 
Unionists  were  for  remaining  in  the  Union  at  any  cost,  while  the 
third  division,  or  middle  men,  were  convinced  that  the  proper 
policy  was  to  remain  in  the  Union  as  long  "as  is  consistent  with 
the  honor  of  the  state."  It  was  the  final  union  of  the  secession- 
ists and  middle  men  on  the  question  of  opposition  to  coercion 
which  brought  about  secession. 

A  like  number  of  questions  had  to  be  decided  by  the  conven- 
tion :  should  the  Peace  Conference  compromise  be  accepted  ; 
should  any  plans  for  border  conference  or  confederacy  be  accepted  ; 
and  should  the  state  permit  coercion  of  the  seceded  states  ?  In 
considering  these  questions  in  order,  three  more  or  less  distinct 
periods  are  discernible  in  the  convention.     Until  the  report  of 


50 


Johns  Hopkins  University  Circular 


[530 


the  Peace  Conference  was  made  public,  many  had  believed  that 
some  settlement  was  possible.  A  desire  to  await  the  outcome  of 
this  body  certainly  acted  as  a  deterrent  on  the  convention.  Even 
the  secessionists  were  willing  for  the  most  part  to  defer  action 
until  the  result  of  the  conference  was  known.  With  the  return 
of  the  commissioners  and  the  declaration  of  a  number  of  them 
that  the  conference  result  was  a  '  f  hollow  sham, ' '  this  hope  was 
virtually  swept  away,  and,  though  the  Peace  Conference  proposals 
were  not  formally  rejected  until  March  25,  they  were  but  little 
considered  after  Congress  declined  to  take  them  up.  Following 
close  upon  the  inauguration  of  Lincoln  came  the  report  of  the 
Committee  on  Federal  Relations  appointed  during  the  earliest 
days  of  the  convention.  The  report  was  timed  to  alleviate  the 
uneasiness  occasioned  by  Lincoln's  inaugural,  but  as  it  was  the 
result  of  endless  compromises  and  gave  rise  to  several  minority 
reports,  it  was  attacked  from  all  sides.  For  the  most  part  the 
middle  men  and  some  of  the  Unionists  favored  this  report,  but  it 
was  opposed  vigorously  by  the  extremists  of  both  sides.  Much 
amended,  and  attacked  at  every  step,  it  was  passed  section  by 
section  until  the  change  of  front  of  some  of  the  middle  men  intro- 
duced the  third  period.  This  change  was  due  to  a  dissatisfaction 
with  the  delay  of  the  convention,  a  dissatisfaction  largely  strength- 
ened by  the  sentiment  of  a  great  part  of  the  state,  and  secondly, 
by  the  growing  predominance  of  the  issue  of  coercion.  On  April 
6,  W.  B.  Preston,  an  erstwhile  strong  Unionist,  proposed  that  a 
committee  wait  on  President  Lincoln  to  see  if  he  still  was  firm  on 
the  question  of  coercion.  The  Union  party  exhausted  every  effort 
in  attempting  to  defeat  this  measure,  but  supported  by  many 
middle  men  as  well  as  secessionists  its  passage  followed  two  days 
later.  With  this  event,  and  both  secessionists  and  middle  men 
united  against  coercion,  the  outcome  was  logical.  On  the  12th 
came  the  news  of  the  attack  on  Sumter,  three  days  later  the  com- 
mittee to  wait  on  the  President  reported,  and  secession  followed 
on  the  17th.  It  will  be  observed  that  during  the  first  period, 
with  maintenance  of  the  union  the  chief  issue,  the  Union  party 
was  naturally  the  leader,  aided  by  the  support  of  the  middle 
men  ;  during  the  second  period  with  border  state  conference  and 


UNIVERSITY  OF  N.C.  AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


00032722876 

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THE  NORTH  CAROLINA  COLLECTION 


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